Page 80 of In A Faraway Land

“I’m tricky.” He stopped in front of a particular door. “In my shirt pocket.”

Flicka unlatched one arm from his neck and found a hotel room keycard in his shirt pocket. “No way.”

“First rule of operational security. Be unpredictable.”

Flicka inserted the card into the door slot. It whirred, unlatching, and Dieter kicked it open. He strodetoward the bed.

“I can’t believe you—”

The door slammed closed behind them as he tossed her on the bed and crawled after her, the mattress bending under his weight.

A ripple ran through her, but it wasexcitement.

He climbed on top of her, wedging one knee between her thighs and tenting his arms around her head. He took her lips with his, but everything about him slowed down. Flicka woundher arms around his neck and lifted herself to kiss him harder, but he deepened the kiss and pushed her down to lie on the sheets again. The tempo of his kiss slowed, sucking and caressing her lips instead of grabbing at her mouth with his.

He restrained her arms, but differently. When they’d been together back in London, he’d pinned her wrists above her head because he liked doing it and she’dliked it, too, but this time he held her hands, palm to palm with their fingers entwined, as he kissed her.

Hot adrenaline still coursed through her blood. She nudged her hips upward, trying to show Dieter that he could go for it, but he held her down with his hands on hers.

He backed off.“Durchlauchtig—”

“Lieblingwächter.”

“Flicka, out there, who are you?”

She grinned even though she waspanting and simply dying to touch his skin. “I’m not aprinzessinanymore, but I feel more like Flicka von Hannover than I ever have.”

He ran his thumb over hers where their hands clasped. “And in here, with me,whoseare you?”

This was what she’d been waiting for.“Yours.All yours.”

“Then I need you to be all mine,” he said.

She stopped. “What are you talking about?”

He dipped his headand ran his lips over her throat, sending a thrill over her skin.“Mine.All mine. All the fear, all the fright, every bit of the terror, it’s mine now. Let me take it from you. I’ll make sure he never touches you again, no matter what I have to do. I won’t let you go anywhere alone where he might be ever again. Give all that to me. Let me carry the fear. Let me worry about keeping you safe. Letme destroy the pain.”

She wanted so much not to be afraid anymore. “Okay.”

“Say yes.”

“Yes.”

He moved down her throat to her collarbones. “Let me have your skin. Let me have your body.”

“Yes.”

“Let me have every inch of you. Let me touch all of you. Let me kiss all of you. Let me make youmine.”

“Yes.”

He released her hands and moved down her body, pushing her clothes away. Flicka twistedher arms to pull her tee shirt over her head, and he double-looped the cloth around her wrists, tying her.

Okay, that was more like it.

Dieter moved down her body, throwing his shirt off the edge of the hotel bed. Muscle rounded his broad shoulders and wide chest in the sunshine, and his skin was crisscrossed with dozens of shallow, white scars and a few deeper, redder ones. One long, thin cordran across his ribs to his stacked abdominal muscles.

Sunlight filtered through the gauze curtains and shone over the whole room, touching his skin and hair with bright gold glimmers.